- Kirsten Dunst has long been open about her mental health, but she just revealed new details about her battle with depression and anger.
- “You don’t know that you are repressing all this anger—it wasn’t a conscious thing,” The Power of the Dog actress said. “I would recommend getting help when you need it.”
- Dunst, 39, checked into rehab in 2008, citing depression. She has since shared how taking medication has helped her.
Since the beginning of her career, Kirsten Dunst has long used her platform to break the stigma around depression. Now, her latest interview dives even deeper into her mental health journey—specifically, how she found peace.
In a new profile in The Times, The Power of the Dog actress got candid about seeking help after a tumultuous end to her 20s. “I feel like for most people, around 27, the s**t hits the fan,” Dunst, 39, said. “Whatever is working in your brain, you can’t live like that anymore, mentally. I feel like I was angry.”
“You don’t know that you are repressing all this anger—it wasn’t a conscious thing,” recalled Dunst. In 2008, at age 27, the Marie Antoinette star checked herself into rehab at the Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Utah, citing depression as her reason for staying.
“I know what it’s like to lose yourself, to no longer know the difference between right or wrong,” she said at the time. But her time in rehab did wonders for her anger and depression: “You become a different person; you grow up,” she told The Times.
“What people expect of an actor is totally ridiculous,” Dunst told Town & Country in 2015. “It’s unfair that an artist is expected to speak really well in public and have skin tough enough to withstand sometimes really hurtful criticism, but also, in order to do the job, be really sensitive and in touch with their feelings. So all you can do is be yourself—just be who the hell you are.”
These days, she now advocates for others to take their mental health seriously, too. “It’s hard to talk about such a personal thing, but it is important to share too. All I’ll say is that medication is a great thing and can really help you come out of something,” Dunst continued in The Times. “I was afraid to take something and so I sat in it for too long. I would recommend getting help when you need it.”
Dunst shares two boys with her husband (and Fargo costar) Jesse Plemons, and she says motherhood has been great for her mental health. “I remember feeling really free after having my [first] son,” she recalled. “I think as a performer, you put yourself out there more [after having a child]. You put yourself on the line because you have nothing to lose. It doesn’t really matter. And to show everything of yourself is a brave thing and a beautiful thing.”
We applaud Dunst for being so open and honest about her mental health journey, and can't wait to see her latest film!
Jake Smith, an editorial fellow at Prevention, recently graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in magazine journalism and just started going to the gym. Let's be honest—he's probably scrolling through Twitter right now.
